Donald Sutherland Quotes

I don't think I have one iota of cynicism about acting.

When you look in the eyes of someone and that's what you look into, I knew him with my blood. It's not something you can actually ever get to, I don't think, without that. It was a huge gift, as an actor.

When I do a film, the days before or the night before, I throw up. Sometimes it's just in my mouth and I swallow it back, but sometimes it's real. Whatever it is, it's hard. I don't do the first five or ten minutes of my character's appearance in a movie until the middle of the shooting schedule because I don't want him to be defined by my nervousness. So, we do the middle of the picture first.

It's a very serious endeavor for me [to play in the same movie with my son]. It's not for a lot of people. It was a wonderful job. I've wanted to do it since I can remember.

Joe Wright called me and I also had some trepidation along those lines but he said no, it would work. He had a very clear and specific idea of what he wanted to do.

I would look a little silly playing Casanova now.

I have never planned anything. I have been doing this job for over 50 years. I have been paid to work with some wonderful people and it has been a huge gift, to me.

I am so glad my wife tolerates me. And we have three wonderful sons.

You have a little bit of talent, a certain amount of good fortune and a lot of hard work in pursuit of whatever truth you can find in it, and if you are really lucky, a terrific partner and I have that and those four things worked out for me.

I have been able to play a lot of guys and they have kept me working.

Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves ?Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here ?Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change ?

Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth.

I come from Nova Scotia, and I'd never seen a theater or been inside of a theater. When I was 17, my dad asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I thought I would like to be an actor. I didn't have any idea what it was to be an actor. None. I'd wanted to be either an actor or a sculptor, which are both essentially the same thing. That's how it all started for me.

I never think of this business as fun. I don't know why. I think I've actually said something about it being fun, but I don't think of it that way. It's not fun, doing it. It's joyful, it's passionate, it's rewarding, it's a pursuit of truth, but I don't think of it as fun. It's not a game.

The only thing I feel passionate about is my wife.

But no, I love acting, it's a wonderful job.

But even with no money you could still go to places like the Scotch Club and, you know, John Lennon might be sitting right over there, but I was certainly not a part of any of that circle. I was truly peripheral.

When the camera starts to roll, there is something of death about it.

I think we're [me and my son] different. He plans, organizes and intellectualizes more than I do. It wasn't until I worked with Federico Fellini that I understood what my problem was.

I thought, "Oh, my god, that's what happens every time I talk with a journalist in the middle of shooting and I talk about my character. I describe him, I objectify him, and I kill him." So, I've never spoken with a journalist in the middle of a film. I don't do the EPK until the very end of a film. I can't talk about Kiefer's process, but what he brings to the table is beautiful.

We don't have that much time left to do it. I'm 80. I wanted to be Walter Huston to his John Huston. I wanted him to direct me, not in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but something. We'll see. We can't predict anything.

Not too much, though there's a certain amount of rancour and bitterness when someone tries to fire you.

I was so disappointed [with movie Forsaken], but maybe I hadn't talked enough with the director. I don't know. But, Kiefer worked it out. Kiefer took it and re-edited it. I don't know whether he talks about that. He's probably more discreet than I am because Jon is a friend of his. Now, it fulfills what I was hoping for, and what we were working on and doing.

Well, I was always cast as an artistic homicidal maniac. But at least I was artistic!

To them though, not to us, we were just a catalyst for their imagination.

What the nation's built on is discussion, contradiction and growth, and at the moment you can't discuss anything. If you do start to discuss it, you get criticized. If people hate us, you have to find out why and try to solve that problem.

I'm running out of time, and a Western is America's answer to a Greek tragedy, so that's what we did. [Kiefer] hired Brad [Mirman] to write the script and he had the ideas, and then he and I did stuff on the script to make it a little cleaner to ourselves. And then, we played it. We were just actors working together, and our DNA must have informed it somehow. Certainly, we came out of it purified a little bit.